In A Soldier's Shoes
by DarthMittens
Summary: A Galbadian Soldier shares the story of his encounter with Squall and the gang with his wife. Dark?Humor.


**A/N: My first foray into Final Fantasy fanfiction; hopefully it doesn't suck!**

**I couldn't get this idea out of my head after thinking what the soldiers must be going through.**

**In A Soldier's Shoes**

Ensign Feren swallowed hard as he looked down at his food and tried to hide his violently shaking hand from his wife, who was sitting across from the table from him. He could tell she knew something was wrong.

"Why aren't you eating, honey?" she asked sweetly, looking at him with worried eyes. "Did I burn it? Did you want something else?"

"No..." Feren started, then cleared his throat after the 'No' came out as a whisper. "No, it's fine."

He was surprised his voice sounded so calm the second time he said it, but his wife somehow caught the tiny waver in it. She really did know him too well. Rubbing her pregnant belly, she said, "Feren, we can't keep things from each other. We're going to be parents in just two months from now. We have to trust each other if we want to raise the baby right."

Feren sighed and let his shoulders slump a little. "I know, Marie," he said dejectedly. "I'm sorry."

He picked up his fork and managed to twirl some pasta around it despite how much his hand was shaking, then stabbed a piece of chicken and shoved the bite in his mouth. He almost spit it out immediately, marveling at the fact that the amount of fear he was feeling at the moment had actually managed to make his wife's delicious food taste like cardboard.

"Feren..." Marie said a little more sternly, and reached across the table to lay her hand on top of his, calming him a little. "Tell me what's going through that head of yours. Please."

When Marie's beautiful eyes met his with so much compassion and tenderness, there was just no way he could deny her. "I submitted my resignation from the Galbadian Army today," he admitted. "I-I can't do it anymore."

Marie, with a sympathetic look on her face, said, "Does this have to do with Kem and Lear?" When Feren didn't respond, Marie said, "Look, Feren. Kem and Lear knew what they were getting into when they signed up to join the army with you. And I know what you're up against every day fighting out there. I knew what the risk was when you told me you wanted to join the army back when we were playing together when we were ten years old, and I still fell in love with you. It's okay, Feren. It's okay. It's the cost of freedom."

Feren swallowed hard and said, his throat dry and his eyes haunted, "You don't understand, Marie. Nobody understands." When it was clear she wanted to know more, Feren continued. "It was all one big joke. Kem and Lear died for no goddamn reason. These three teenage punks...they couldn't have been older than seventeen, peach fuzz still the only hair on the boys' faces. There was a girl with them too.

"Me, Kem, and Lear were hunting them on the Sorceress' orders. Said they were high priority targets. We underestimated them, of course. I gave the order to take them hostage to take to the Sorceress, and then...and then..."

Marie sat in silence, waiting for her husband to continue. She had known Feren since they were both in pre-school, and knew when he just needed somebody to listen to, no matter how much she wanted to just go over, sit on his lap, and hold him and tell him everything was going to be okay.

"They were dead," Feren finally continued. "Just like that. Barely any effort from any of those kids and my two best friends were dead." Tears pricked his eyes as he continued. "I tried to fight back...tried to avenge them. I landed direct hits with my sword, my gun, and my magic. Nothing I did to them seemed to affect them at all. It's like they were invincible or something.

"And then, with my two best friends dead on the floor next to me, they started sucking my magic from me. I had abstained from using magic for two months in case we had a battle like this, and they just...sucked it all out. They didn't even try to kill me. They just stood there, drawing my magic from me over and over and over and over again. They did until there was no more to get. And then, finally, six or seven minutes later with me attacking them as much I could, they just left. I wasn't even worth their time."

Horrified but trying to keep it together for her husband's sake, she said, "Oh, Feren. That's terrible."

"I couldn't do anything, Marie," Feren said, now crying. "I couldn't do a damn thing to them. My years of training were completely worthless. It was like an ant trying to fight a boot."

Marie held it together for Feren, but in reality she was really scared over the whole ordeal. She didn't know that Feren, her Feren, who was her knight in gloriously shining army, was so weak compared to the real heavy-hitters in this world. It really was a good thing he had left the army, then.

"There's plenty of work around here, Feren," Marie said, glad that he was safe. "We'll make it work."

They had made it this far, after all. No abnormally strong teenagers were going to stop them from living their full, happy lives.

**A/N: I felt bad for the guy I drew magic out of for 10 minutes, so I let him live. Then I came up with this. Thanks for reading! Leave a review if you feel like it!**


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